Author: bizloadsolutions

Here are the steps involved in creating Business Rules in Dynamics CRM 365.

1. I’ve created a custom form called New Form which includes fields such as Form Status and Phone.

Now let’s say we want to make Phone field mandatory when Form Status value is “In Progress”.

To do this, go to Settings, and then Customization, and then click on Solutions.

2. Click on the solution you want to add the Business Rules. In this case, I’ve created my own custom solution called, “TazSolutions”.

3. And then expand the Entities menu, and then select your entity. And then select and click on your Form. In this case, I’ve created a my own custom entity called, “TazCompany.”, and I’ve created a new Form called, “New Form”.

4. When opening the Form in design mode, then click on Business Rules on the menu, and then New Business Rules.

4. Click on Condition action.

5. Set condition to Form Status is equal to In Progress, and then click Apply

6. Add Set Business Required action.

7. Set Phone to Business Required, and then click Apply.

8. Then add another Set Business Required.

8. Set Phone to Not Business Required, and then click Apply.

9. Now you can Save the Business Rule.

10. and then click on Activate.

11. Now go back to the form you set the Business Rules, and then create a New Form.

And you will notice that Phone is not required when Form Status is not in progress, but when form Status is In Progress, the Phone is then required.

When initially diving into Dynamic CRM 365, you notice that you don’t see some features, such as Solutions and Customize the System (Default Solution), or System Settings. Well that’s because your user need’s to be promoted to Admin.

When going into Dynamics 365 Administration Center, you notice when going to the Instances tab, and message below shows that you do not have administration privileges.

That’s fine, to resolve this issue, in the Dynamics 365 Instance, go to Settings, then Security, and Users. Then select User and click Promote to Admin.

Click on OK to proceed to Promote to Admin.

Now you will notice that you have full control in the Dynamics 365 Instance and in the Dynamics 365 Administration Center.

One good reason to add a workflow to a Content Type instead of directly to the SharePoint List, is when using a Document Set Content Type. Say if Document Set Content Type had at least 3 documents, then if we want to configure the workflow to send email notification that when Document Set is created, if we were to create the workflow at the SharePoint List level, then at least 3 email notification will be sent out when Document Set is created (1 email for each document within the Document Set), however if we create the workflow at the Document Set Content Type level, then only 1 email will be sent when Document Set is created.

There might be many other reason’s why workflow is required at the Content Type level, then directly in the SharePoint List level.

One preferred way to create workflow at the content type level is to create a reusable workflow.

Depending on which Workflow tool you are using (SharePoint Designer Workflow, Nintex Workflow, K2 Workflow or AgilePoint Workflow), each way has it’s own steps of creating a reusable workflow. In this example, we will be using a simple Nintex Reusable Workflow.

Here are the steps involved:

1. Create a reusable workflow, in this example, by click on the circle icon, Nintex Workflow 2013, and then Create Reusable Workflow Template (for new Reusable Workflow).

10. In workflow section, select My Reusable Workflow, and in Start Options, check Creating a new item will start this workflow, and type in the name of the workflow, in this case “My First Reusable Workflow”, and then click OK.

11. Now go back to document library, and add a new document set:

12. And give the document set a name, create the new document set.

13. And now the document set workflow has been executed, and an email has been sent.

When first creating an account and logging into SharePoint Online 365, and when trying to add a web part to a web page, you will notice Content Editor Web Part is missing.

Content Editor Web Part is one of the most highly used SharePoint web parts, so to not have a Content Editor Web Part enabled, means a partial crisis for SharePoint. However, not to fear, you can enable Content Editor Web Part in SharePoint Online.

Here are the steps involved:

1. Go to SharePoint admin center, and then click on Settings.

2. Enable custom scripts, by scroll down to Custom Scripts, and select:

Allow users to run custom script on personal sites

and, Allow users to run custom script on self-service created sites

and then click OK.

Note: This setting might take 24 hour to take effect.

3. Go back to your site, and now you should see Content Editor Web Part enabled.

In this year of 2017, SharePoint has come out with many flavours and approaches in the way of developing online approval forms, such as a “travel expense form”. From a history list of SharePoint versions, such as SharePoint 2007 all the way to SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online 365, the question arises when wanting to develop a Custom SharePoint Form, of what approaches or technologies is their available in the market and what approaches we can use to develop Custom SharePoint Forms. And the next question arises, which workflow tool to use in creating for example approvals in workflows?

Well some of the well known tools in the market for SharePoint Online Form development are:

Online Form Technologies

Advantages / disadvantages

InfoPath Forms

Advantage:

Quicker Development Time as generally no code is required (although you can still add code to InfoPath Forms)

Very powerful form with views, rules, and many controls

Able to link with web services, and SharePoint list data

Easy to learn, and software development coding background is not required (unless adding code)

Disadvantage:

Not able to attach large files, such as small video files

InfoPath is getting deprecated by Microsoft

Might experience issues with non-internet explorer browsers

ASP.NET Web Parts Visual WebParts

Advantage:

Visual Studio required

Allow CSS and JavaScript coding

Able to use most ASP.NET controls, with some SharePoint controls such as People Picker

Longer to develop as code is required, and therefore Angular, JavaScript coding knowledge background is required.

Not able to use in SharePoint 2007

Sometimes harder to debug as the code is in JavaScript and JQuery.

PowerApps

In this year 2017, PowerApps is fairly new in the market for form development. PowerApps is highly being pushed by Microsoft in the cloud on SharePoint Online 365, and it is seen as an alternative to InfoPath forms development, as InfoPath is getting depreciated by Microsoft.

Comes with some great feature. Each 3rd Party tool has it’s own features.

Disadvantage:

Cost money to purchase.

Some of these forms might not be as powerful as InfoPath Forms, but you never know in the future.

Now moving on to workflows, how do we decide which workflow tool to use with SharePoint?

Well, the most cheapest option, out there is:

1. SharePoint Designer Workflows

SharePoint Designer Workflows are a free Workflow tool that can be downloaded from the internet, however even though it’s free, it doesn’t provide a image look and feel of the Workflow once it’s deployed. Basically, to find out what steps have been completed, and what is the current step in the Workflow, you would have to do a lot of logging in the Workflow.

AgilePoint Workflow are one of my favourites. Really complicated Workflows can be developed with AgilePoint. This is definitely one of the options considered when deciding to purchase a online Workflow tool.

K2 Workflows are another great option to choose from, and comes with many features, including Lazy Approval. K2 Workflows are a real advantage with your work environment. The design interface of K2 Workflows can be browser based, hosted in SharePoint, Visio and Visual Studio.

5. Flow Workflows

Flow is relatively new to the market, and is a Microsoft based Workflow. Flow is highly being pushed by Microsoft in the cloud on SharePoint Online 365.Flow goes well with PowerApps. It might be a good option with SharePoint Online 365, but currently SharePoint on-premises, other Workflow tools are more used.

In conclusion, spend some good research time into what Custom SharePoint Online Forms and Workflows tool to choose from, as generally when a SharePoint Online Forms and Workflow tool is selected, then many projects will be developed using those tools.

To resolve this issue, you must have access to SharePoint admin center. Here are the steps involved:

1. In the Admin center, go to SharePoint admin center.

2. Select infopath menu.

3. Check “Allow users to browser-enable form templates“, and “Render form templates that are browser-enabled by users“, and then click OK.

4. You will get prompted with the message below, but just ignore the message and click OK:

Office 365 will support InfoPath Forms Services through 2015, but Microsoft is in the process of retiring InfoPath-based technologies.
To learn more, please refer to http://aka.ms/ipfs
Do you still want to enable InfoPath Form Services

This message only means that Microsoft is eventually depreciating and will no longer support InfoPath Form Services in the future.

5. Go back to InfoPath Forms, and you should now be able to connect to the SharePoint Online 365 list (also known as apps), or create a new SharePoint list.

When coding in SharePoint using JavaScript, then _spPageContextInfo code comes really in handy. _spPageContextInfo is a code that contains information about the current context or details about the SharePoint site. Some of the main data able to retrieve from _spPageContextInfo include: